Changing your migration agent or authorised recipient mid-application: the forms, the file, the ImmiAccount, and the request you never saw

MARN 1576536

The authorised recipient

The Migration Act provides that where an applicant has given the Department the name of an authorised recipient, the Department must give the recipient, rather than the applicant, any document it would otherwise give the applicant, and that the applicant is taken to have received the document when the recipient did; a registered migration agent appointed on the application is the authorised recipient unless the form says otherwise, and the appointment stands until it is withdrawn or replaced. Every request for information, every invitation to comment on adverse information, every notice of intention to cancel and every decision goes to that person, with the period to respond running from the date it was sent to them. The arrangement works when the recipient reads the letters and tells the client, and fails, with the client's application, when the recipient is an agent the client has left, an agent who has closed, or an agent whose email the Department has and the client does not.

Form 956 and Form 956A

• Form 956, Appointment of a registered migration agent, legal practitioner or exempt person: appoints the agent to give immigration assistance on the application and, where the box is ticked, as the authorised recipient; it is also the form for withdrawing that appointment. It is signed by the client and the agent, and an agent lodges it through ImmiAccount against the application.
• Form 956A, Appointment or withdrawal of an authorised recipient: appoints a person who is not giving immigration assistance, a relative, a friend, or the applicant themselves, to receive the Department's correspondence, and withdraws a recipient; it is the form a client lodges to take back the correspondence after an agent without appointing a new one.
• Only one authorised recipient can be appointed on an application at a time, and the Department acts on the most recent form it receives; a new Form 956 appointing a new agent as recipient replaces the old agent as recipient without a separate withdrawal.

How the change is made

1. Engage the new agent in writing, with the agreement the Code requires.
2. The new agent lodges Form 956 on the application, appointing themselves as agent and authorised recipient; the Department updates the file within days and writes to the new agent from then.
3. Tell the old agent in writing that the engagement has ended, that a new appointment has been lodged, and that the file is requested.
4. The old agent withdraws through ImmiAccount, as the Code requires on ending a client relationship, and tells the Department; the Department does not need the old agent's consent to act on the new form.
5. The new agent confirms with the Department that the correspondence details have changed, and reads the file for anything outstanding.

The Department does not reassess, delay or note the application for a change of agent; it is an administrative update, and applicants change agents at every stage.

Ending the old engagement

The client ends the engagement by telling the agent, in writing, that it has ended; no form is needed between client and agent, and the agreement's terms on termination govern the fees for work done and not the client's right to leave. The Code of Conduct requires the agent, on the end of the engagement, to notify the Department that they no longer act, to return the client's documents, and to account for fees held in the clients' account; an agent who keeps acting after being told the engagement has ended, or who keeps receiving the Department's letters and does not forward them, breaches the Code. The client keeps the letter ending the engagement and the date it was sent, because that date matters if a request goes astray.

Your file and your documents

The Code requires an agent to keep the client's file and to give the client, on request, copies of the documents the client provided and the documents prepared for the client that the client has paid for; the agent's own working notes are the agent's, and an agent may keep a copy of the file for their own records, but the client's passport, certificates, statements and the application as lodged are the client's. A client who cannot get the file from the old agent has the Department's file: a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the application and its attachments, or the new agent's ImmiAccount import, which shows the application form and the attachments as lodged, gives the new agent what the Department has, which is what matters. An agent who withholds documents the client needs for a deadline is reported to the regulator, and the regulator treats it seriously.

The ImmiAccount

An application lodged through the old agent's ImmiAccount remains in that account, and the Department does not move it; the new agent, or the client, creates their own ImmiAccount and imports the application into it using the transaction reference number, the applicant's date of birth and passport details, after which the application is visible in the new account with its status, its correspondence and its attachments, and further documents are uploaded from there. The old agent's access is ended when the Department acts on the new Form 956, and an old agent who continues to upload or to communicate on the application is reported. The client never uses the old agent's login, which would be an offence under the Department's terms and a false identification of the person acting. An agent who created the ImmiAccount in the client's name and holds the password hands it over as part of the file, and the client changes the password and the recovery details at once.

The request you never saw

A request for information sent to the old agent after the client left, and not forwarded, is a request the client is taken to have received, and a period that expires is expired: the Department decides the application on the material it has, which for a request for a police certificate or a health examination is a refusal. The client who discovers it lodges the new appointment, writes to the Department at once with the response and an explanation of when and how the old engagement ended, with the letter and its date, and asks the Department to consider the response if the application is undecided; the Department's practice is to accept a late response where the application has not been decided and the explanation is credible. Where the application has been refused, the review period runs from the notification to the old agent, and the client lodges at the Tribunal inside it, with the response and the explanation, which the Tribunal considers afresh; a review period that has also expired is the hardest case, and the consultation reads whether the notification was valid. The old agent's failure to forward is a Code breach for the complaint. The request guide covers the letter and its period.

The agent who will not hand over

An agent who refuses to return documents, to withdraw with the Department, to hand over the ImmiAccount, or to confirm the end of the engagement is in breach of the Code, and the client does three things: lodges the new Form 956 or 956A regardless, since the Department acts on it without the old agent's cooperation; obtains the file from the Department by import or Freedom of Information; and complains to the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority, which investigates Code breaches and can caution, suspend or cancel the agent's registration. A lawyer acting as an agent is complained of to the legal profession regulator in the state. The complaint does not need to wait for the application's outcome and does not affect it. The unregistered agent guide covers the person who lodged and was not an agent at all.

The fee dispute

A dispute about what is owed to the old agent, or what should be refunded, is a matter of the agreement and the Code's requirements on fees held in trust and on accounting for them, and it does not stop the change of agent or the Department's acceptance of the new appointment; an agent who conditions the return of documents or the withdrawal on payment is in breach, and the client proceeds on the forms and disputes the fees separately, through the regulator's complaint process, the state's consumer tribunal, or a court for the amount. Fees paid for work not done are recoverable; fees paid for work done are owed, and a client who leaves an agent mid-application owes for the lodgement and the work to the date, which the agreement sets.

Representing yourself

An applicant who decides to act alone after an agent lodges Form 956A appointing themselves as the authorised recipient, or Form 956 withdrawing the agent, imports the application into their own ImmiAccount, and checks that the email and the postal address on the application are current, because the Department writes to those from then; the Department deals with unrepresented applicants in the same way, and the applicant reads every letter, calendars every period and responds inside it. A second opinion on the application the old agent lodged, before deciding whether to act alone, is often worth the fee, and the second opinion guide covers it; the choosing guide covers the questions before engaging the next agent.

What the new agent checks first

• The application as lodged: the form answers, the attachments, and anything the client did not know was said.
• The correspondence: every request and its period, answered or not.
• The status, and whether a decision has issued that the client has not seen.
• The authorised recipient on the file, and that it has changed.
• The old agent's withdrawal, and whether the regulator needs to hear about anything.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Sections 494D and 494C of the Migration Act 1958 (authorised recipients and deemed receipt), the Department’s Forms 956 and 956A, and the Code of Conduct for registered migration agents under the Migration Agents Regulations 1998 on ending engagements, clients’ documents and fees, as in force at the date above; the Department’s practice on late responses is a matter of its policy and the current position governs. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.